Skyfall

by Catherine Asaro

  “Do you know why coming up here helped him?” she asked.

  “The air, we thought.” He pulled off the scarf around his neck and used it to wipe saliva and blood away from Eldri’s mouth. “It is clearer. Less humid.”

  Roca went through the files in her node, but found nothing about dry air as a treatment. “I don’t know. It seems unlikely.”

  “I can think of no other important differences.”

  “What about changes in lifestyle? Food? Pollen?”

  Patiently, Garlin said, “What is pollen?”

  “Plants make it. They reproduce that way.”

  “Like glitter in reed bubbles?”

  “Essentially.”

  He shook his head. “No plants grow up here. So no glitter. But the attacks are much worse.”

  Roca recalled how she and Eldri had been covered in glitter all the way across the plain. He had shown no distress then. “Perhaps he’s worse now because he’s under so much strain.”

  Garlin’s fist clenched on his knee. “It was my idea to come here.”

  “You couldn’t have known.”

  “I feel so—” He fought with the words. “So godsforsaken helpless.”

  “You must not blame yourself.” She could feel how much it hurt him to be unable to help Eldri. “He is alive today because of the care you’ve given him his entire life.”

  He considered her. “I would not have expected you would acknowledge such.”

  “But why do you say that?”

  “When first you came to us, I thought nothing could thaw your heart.” He lifted his hand, palm up, then turned it down in a gesture she didn’t recognize, though she had a sense it meant he retracted his words. “With Eldri, though, you are different. He and I, we always shared a knowing, but it is nothing compared to what he has with you.” His face gentled as he looked at Eldri, though with sorrow as much as affection. “Always I have been first in his life, closer to him than anyone else.” In a low voice, he said, “It hurts to become second.”

  Roca could tell how much it cost him to make that admission. She thought of Garlin spending his life tending Eldri, never having a full life of his own, knowing the cousin he loved might die anytime. She spoke quietly. “I am honored to be part of your family.”

  His mouth quirked in a smile, making him look ten years younger. “Ah, well. You are a diplomat.”

  “Foreign Affairs,” Eldri said groggily. He sat up between them, rubbing his eyes. “Is that right, Roca?”

  “Yes.” She tried to smile, too, though moisture gathered in her eyes. “Councilor for Foreign Affairs.”

  A ghost of his mischief sparked. “Am I a foreign affair? But no, we are married. Now it is legitimate.”

  Roca laughed. “Ah, love, behave yourself.”

  He put one hand on her arm and one on Garlin’s arm. “You are the two people I love most in this world. It pleases me that you seem to get along after all.”

  Roca felt her face redden. “Were we that prickly before?”

  Garlin winced. “Perhaps so.”

  Eldri put an arm around each of their shoulders. “This is better, yes?”

  Garlin managed a strained show of cheer. “Yes, I think so.” But Roca felt his sadness. They both knew the truth.

  Eldri was running out of time.

  16

  A King’s Supper

  “Sulpher,” Roca said, walking down an aisle between long, narrow tables in the kitchen. “The yellow powder for explosives.”

  “It smells like rotten eggs,” Brad explained. “I need to find more of it.”

  Garlin sighed, ever patient. “What are eggs?”

  Brad grinned at him. “Birds have them.”

  Garlin gave him a deadpan look. “Ah. Well, in that case, we can find them with your notorious ‘pigeons.’”

  Brad laughed, at ease with Garlin in a way Roca had never managed, even now when she and Garlin had stopped distrusting each other. She looked around the huge kitchen where the four of them were walking. “You need more charcoal, too, yes?”

  “It would help,” Brad said. “But at this point I’ll experiment with anything.”

  “I do not understand,” Garlin said. “You mix powders and they explode, just like that?”

  “You need heat and pressure, too,” Brad said.

  “I still don’t like this idea to destroy the bridge,” Eldri grumbled. He motioned at the dried bubbles heaped on the tables, dark red, dusky yellow, and orange, or the clusters of blue or green bubbles hanging from the glasswood rafters. “When this is all gone, we must be rescued or surrender. How, without our bridge?”

  “We can build the drawbridge,” Roca said.

  “That did actually sound like a good idea,” Eldri admitted.

  “I also need to plan how we will use explosives inside the castle,” Brad said. “In case we can’t stop Avaril outside. We don’t want detonations to weaken the foundations here.”

  Roca peered at the table on their left. Vials were scattered around, all filled with powder, some covered with translucent bubble skins, but most open to the air. She stopped to examine them and everyone gathered around her.

  “Can you come up with solutions?” Garlin was asking Brad.

  “Thinking up solutions is what I do for a living,” Brad said. “My doctorate is in mechanical engineering.” When Garlin glared, Brad laughed. “Getting a doctorate is like learning a trade here.”

  Roca picked up a vial. “Anyone know what this is?”

  Eldri peered at the white powder. “Salt.”

  “Oh.” She set it down. “Can’t do much with that.”

  “You most certainly can,” Eldri said crossly. “You make food taste better.” He gave the kitchen a sour look, including a cook several tables over who was preparing food. “I used to love coming to Windward because the meals were so good. Now, with all this rationing, these heartless cooks will use no salts. They want it for preserving.” He scowled. “Avaril has much to answer for.”

  Brad smiled. “I think you will survive without salting your food. Besides, it raises your blood pressure.”

  “Blood pressure,” Garlin said smugly. “I can figure that one out.”

  Roca considered Eldri. “When we first came up here, were the cooks seasoning the food?”

  “I think so. It certainly tasted better.”

  Brad gave her a dubious look. “Lady Roca, you are a most admirable woman with a most admirable intellect, but I don’t think it is possible to demolish a bridge with table salt.”

  Her lips quirked upward. “You say that so nicely.”

  “You want to blow up our bridge with salt?” Eldri asked, incredulous.

  Roca shook her head. “Garlin and I were talking earlier today about why your seizures improve up here.”

  Garlin took a vial and poured its white powder into his palm. “We use salt in Dalvador, too. That is no different from here.”

  A hope was stirring in Roca, one she hesitated to entertain, lest reality dash it to pieces. “These salts.” She motioned at the vials. “Are they all the same?”

  “I can ask.” Eldri called to one of the cooks.

  A heavyset man with a blue apron and large stomach came over. He spoke in Trillian, his voice a melody of bass notes. “Pleased to see you, Bard Eldrinson.”

  “Thank you.” Eldri indicated the vials. “We were wondering what these seasonings were.”

  The fellow seemed puzzled by the question, but he gamely studied the vials. He moved the two covered ones aside. “These two are challine. The rest are plain salt.”

  Roca picked up a challine vial. “It looks like salt.”

  “Well, it is, of a kind,” the cook said. “We don’t have much, though. It comes from the spas.”

  “Spas?” Roca asked.

  “Mineral springs.” Eldri motioned toward the north. “In the valley that Avaril’s men have occupied. The water tastes good, and I love soaking in the spas.” Sourly he added, “That is, when p
eople aren’t attacking my castle.”

  The cook crossed his beefy arms and frowned as if Eldri were a misbehaved boy. “It is bad for you to drink it.”

  “I like it,” Eldri said. “It makes me sleepy.”

  “Ah, gods,” Roca murmured. “I wish we had a chemist.”

  “What is it?” Brad asked.

  She lifted the challine vial. “I think sodium bromide and potassium bromide can be used as anticonvulsants. I don’t know what this is, but if something Eldri drinks or eats puts bromide in his system, it might help control his seizures.”

  “Bromide. Sodium. Potassium.” Garlin looked frustrated. “These are real words?”

  “They’re names for salts,” Roca said.

  “Aren’t bromides toxic?” Brad asked.

  Roca hesitated. “Maybe it depends on the quantity or how it’s made.” She showed the vial to Eldri. “Do you have challine at your home in the plains?”

  “I’ve no idea.” He glanced at the cook. “Do you ever come to Dalvador?”

  “I used to live there,” the man said. “But I never worked in the kitchens of your home.” He considered the vial Roca held. “This much is true; challine is an uncommon seasoning. If I had to guess, I would say your cooks in Dalvador don’t use it.”

  Eldri nodded. “Thank you, Goodsir.”

  “My pleasure.” The cook bowed to him.

  After the cook returned to his work, Eldri picked up the other challine vial. “Could it be? Could something as simple as salt make my life bearable?”

  Roca feared to offer too much hope. “Perhaps. But we can’t be sure.”

  “We must find out, eh?” His face flashed with his old mischief, which had been absent all too much lately. “I shall tell the cooks they must salt my food again.”

  Roca set her vial on the table. “Did it ever make you sick?”

  “Some,” he admitted. “But if it controls my attacks, it is worth it.” He thumped the table. “I am decided. I will try.”

  Brad turned in a circle, surveying the kitchen. “Think we can find any potassium nitrate here?”

  Garlin groaned. “Sometimes, Brad, I think you make up these words just to bedevil me.”

  Eldri strode into the bedroom just as Channil was finishing her exam of Roca. The midwife glared at him. “Do you always explode into places uninvited?”

  Eldri hesitated. “Uh—it’s my room.”

  Channil shook her hands at him, shooing him away.

  “It’s all right.” Roca sat up on the bed, pulling down her fur-lined shift.

  Eldri approached the bed cautiously, with a wary glance at the midwife. “Is everything all right?”

  Channil crossed her arms. “Your wife needs more sleep, young man.”

  Eldri turned red. “I, uh—yes, of course, ma’am.”

  Channil made a hmmmph noise. To Roca, she said, “More sleep. No more falling down.” Then she bustled out of the room.

  Roca watched fondly as Eldri flopped onto his stomach next to her. “And how are you today?”

  “Wonderful.” He grinned. “I’ve been watching Brad blow things up. It is very entertaining.”

  Roca laughed. “So his experiments are working?”

  “Hardly. They never do what he wants.” Eldri relented a bit. “Perhaps he makes progress. The bombs only fizzle half the time now.”

  Roca wasn’t sure teaching Eldri’s people to make bombs was progress, but it was better than letting Avaril slaughter them. “How are you feeling?”

  He rolled onto his side, facing her. “Do you know that in the eleven days since I started the salt, I haven’t had any big attacks and only a few of the small.”

  Every day he went without a seizure felt like a gift. “I am glad, love.”

  His face gentled. “Say it again.”

  “I am glad.”

  “No. The other.”

  She grinned. “The other.”

  Softly he said, “Roca.”

  She slid down next to him. “I am glad, my love.”

  “Do you truly love me?”

  “Truly.” She didn’t think she had known what the word meant until she met Eldri.

  He laid his hand on her abdomen. “It hurts to love you and this child.”

  “Hurts? But why?”

  He swallowed. “Because the harder you love, the more it will crush you to lose it.”

  Roca entwined her hand with his, five fingers with four. “Whatever happens, know that I will do everything I can to make it possible that we can stay together.”

  His mood lightened. “Good. It will give me more opportunity to do this.” Sliding his hand under her shift, he tickled her side.

  Laughing, Roca pushed his hand away. “Eldri—”

  “Bard Eldrinson!” The cry came from outside. “Come! Hurry!”

  Warriors paced the top of the huge wall that surrounded Windward, protected by reed-shaped merlons. Roca, Eldri, and Garlin crowded into the lookout of the high tower. Leaning into a narrow opening, Roca studied Avaril’s army in the plain below. They were guiding a battering ram on wheels, pushing it toward the bridge that arched across the chasm to Windward.

  Eldri leaned next to her. “What can you see?”

  “I can’t figure out how they plan to use that thing.” Roca magnified the scene with her optics. “They need a way to drive it forward, but I don’t see any mechanism.”

  “Maybe they will just push it.”

  “That won’t give enough force.” She pulled away from the opening, awkward now, clumsy with her girth. “I don’t think they’ve finished it yet.”

  Garlin was leaning against the wall next to them. “It might be a test, to see if they can get it across the bridge.”

  Roca regarded him uneasily. “They’re managing just fine.”

  Eldri stood up straighter. “Garlin, I want the men to step up their training sessions. I will work with them again later this afternoon.”

  Garlin laid a hand on his shoulder. “I will do it.”

  Eldri pushed off his hand. “I will be fine.”

  “If you overwork yourself, you may have more attacks.” Garlin spoke awkwardly, obviously aware his words could hurt. “Having one in front of your men now could hurt morale.”

  Eldri crossed his arms. “I would be no Bard if I hid while my men prepared for battle.”

  The mention of his title startled Roca. Although many cultures associated song with battle, this was the only one she knew of where the ability to sing historically accurate ballads had become a prerequisite for commanding an army. She hoped Avaril Valdoria had an atrocious voice. It would be fitting retribution for this man who would be Bard.

  “You mustn’t push yourself,” Garlin told Eldri.

  “I haven’t had an attack in days,” Eldri said.

  “That doesn’t mean they have stopped.”

  Roca almost urged Garlin to let him be, to let Eldri save his pride; then she wanted to urge Eldri to protect himself. She held back, knowing neither man would relent. Instead she said, “Eldri, can you do your extra workouts with Garlin?” Besides supervising his men’s training, Eldri also trained one-on-one with selected partners, to hone his craft. “If you have a seizure, Garlin knows how to deal with it.”

  Eldri shook his head. “I must work with my men. Otherwise, why should they follow me?”

  “And if the convulsions start again?” Garlin asked.

  “Then they come.” Eldri nodded to them. Before they could protest further, he took his leave, going down a narrow staircase to the shielded pathway that ran along the top of the wall. Roca wanted to go after him, but she held back. Through the doorway, she could see him walking. Each time he passed one of his men, he stopped for a moment to talk before continuing on his way.

  Garlin watched until Eldri turned a corner. “The crime of it,” he said, “is that he is a natural leader. The men would follow him from here to the moons if he asked.”

  “If he has a convulsion during battle,” Roca
said, “he’s dead.”

  “And if he survives because he holds back when others fight?” Garlin spoke heavily. “He couldn’t live with himself.”

  Roca knew he was right; if they interfered, Eldri would never forgive them. She wondered if fate were laughing at them. It offered all of humanity a new hope in Eldri, one of the strongest psions ever born—and then would take his life before he ever had a chance to realize his gifts.

  17

  Bridge of Sorrows

  “There.” Brad set the delicate contraption on Roca’s upturned hand. The hollow glasswood body was so small, it fit in her palm, but the wings had a span longer than her forearm. She and Brad had used the skin of red and blue bubbles to make them. He had scavenged components from his palmtop and smart-knife and even torn out tiny computers in the clothes he had worn up here that long-ago day he had come to see if she was all right.

  A breeze from the open window picked up the flier, and Roca barely managed to grab it before the wind carried it away.

  Brad closed the shutters. “I hope it can reach the plains.”

  “I too. Who knows how long it can stay aloft.” Roca flicked her thumb against the switch on the flier. The gadget fluttered up, wheeled around the chamber a few times, and drifted to the floor. She laid her hand on her abdomen, thinking a child would love such a gadget.

  As Brad retrieved the flier, a tiny holo of Eldri activated above it and began telling them Windward needed help.

  “It looks good,” Roca said as the message finished.

  “We can make ten of these fliers,” Brad said. “Actually, we can make as many as we want. But to run the holo, I only have enough components for ten.”

  “We could send written messages on the rest.”

  “Who would read them?”

  That gave her pause. It was too easy to forget the Lyshrioli had no written language. They didn’t even understand the concept. She sighed. “If only we could attach a Memory to the fliers. That would solve everything.”